Beginning of the End!

Pretty girl! :3

Edit: Nope, not pretty at all. I don't know shit. I suck at this.

It's the beginning of the end both for this drawing and this summer, and I'm not sure I'm content with how I've done with either. The drawing, even in its current incomplete stage, has taken me ~8 hours from just getting a maybe-somewhat anatomically correct sketch to the cleanish but still spotty line-work.  My goal with this one was to use less lines to describe the features of the face/bust, and for those lines to be rendered quickly, cleanly, and expressively- the same way Darrow seems to draw his human faces. I fell short of absolutely every one of those goals. Just getting the level of likeness I've achieved here, which is still not really spot-on, was incredibly difficult. So issue number one: I've yet to develop a go-to way of establishing the proportions of the head.  The linework ended up being an ordeal of zooming in ridiculously close and darkening, redrawing, and erasing stray pixels on each. Very far from putting down, completely erasing, and redrawing strokes over and over until I could get them just right. So, issue number two: my hand is still way shakier than I'd care to imagine, probably a consequence of flapping my wrist around instead of using my entire arm as a pivot. But now that I think about it, using my arms appropriately has always been a problem, even when I was really young. Long ago, I had been placed in a rather odd dance class where the teacher started us off by having us pretend we were birds. While the other kids in the class immediately seemed to grasp the concept of grace and would extend their entire arms up and down slowly as if they were draped in feathers from fingertip to shoulder, my arms remained stiff as a pole while my hands flailed about like they were two fish out of water stapled to the ends of my wrists. While the other kids were graceful, delicate swans, I was a demented kiwi. So I gotta work on line drills, and also figuring out how to get my brush settings in PS just right for this type of linework. Last but not least, what was first intended to be a sketch to be in a gallery of other face-sketches ended up being a many hour ordeal stretched over several days. Issue numero tres: I really need to let go of my pride and concentrate on quantity and not quality for once, and maybe, just maybe, that'll allow me to overcome all of the above problems, which i'm convinced are being held imprisoned in my box of habits by this lock.

Similarly, this summer I haven't accomplished nearly as much in artwork as I had initially hoped. I wanted to figure out a 9-5 drawing routine Monday through Friday through which I would work out all of the setbacks I've mentioned and more, while also refreshing my stale portfolio and learning the basics of Maya. The only things which I have accomplished in this vein have been posted on this blog. Quite a lot has been learned and experienced outside of this aspect of my life, but I would have much preferred it if I had been able to balance advancements in both areas more effectively.